In one of the most exciting episodes of the air war during World War I, the British airman Richard Bell Davies performs a daring rescue on November 19, 1915, swooping down in his plane to whisk a downed fellow pilot from behind the Turkish lines at Ferrijik Junction.

A squadron commander in the Royal Naval Air Service, Davies was flying alongside Flight Sub-Lieutenant Gilbert F. Smylie on a bombing mission. Their target was the railway junction at Ferrijik, located near the Aegean Sea and the border between Bulgaria and Ottoman-controlled Europe. When the Turks hit Smylie’s plane with anti-aircraft fire, he was forced to land. As he made his way to the ground, Smylie was able to release all his bombs but one before making a safe landing behind enemy lines. Smylie was then unable to restart his plane and immediately set fire to the aircraft in order to disable it.

Meanwhile, Davies saw his comrade’s distress from the air and quickly moved to land his own plane nearby. Seeing Davies coming to his rescue and fearing the remaining bomb on his plane would explode, injuring or killing them both, Smylie quickly took aim at his machine with his revolver and fired, exploding the bomb safely just before Davies came within its reach. Davies then rushed to grab hold of Smylie, hauling him on board his aircraft just as a group of Turkish soldiers approached. Before the Turks could reach them, Davies took off, flying himself and Smylie to safety behind British lines.

Calling Davies’ act a "feat of airmanship that can seldom have been equaled for skill and gallantry," the British government awarded him the Victoria Cross on January 1, 1916. The quick-thinking Smylie was rewarded as well; he received the Distinguished Service Cross.

19 November 1914 - Early in the day the 16th and 18th Brigades attacked the Turk fortress at Zain in a heavy rainstorm which slowed the advance to a walk. After an accurate bombardment the fort fell, leaving over 1000 Turkish casualties; the rest of the enemy streamed away, saved only by a mirage appearing which obscured the fleeing target of the British artillery. Cavalry were unable to pursue due to the heavy mud. British casualties in the advance of 2000 yards of open ground were 353. The Turks tried hurriedly to block the river by towing a string of ships across and sinking them. However, a cable broke and left a gap wide enough for one vessel at a time to pass.

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS asked the Under-Secretary for War whether men of the 10th battalion of the Hampshire regiment, which has been sent to Mullingar, in Ireland, have been sent back to Aldershot to learn cooking; and whether it would have been possible to save a good deal of expense by letting them learn this art in some Irish camp?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Mr. H. J. Tennant) I could not say whether the men were sent from Mullingar without asking for a special report, but there is no inherent improbability in the statement as the School of Army Cookery is at Aldershot, and as there is no similar school in Ireland where the men could be instructed.

Clara Zetkin, 1914: "The Duty of Working Women in War-Time"Source: Zetkin “The Duty of Working Women in War-Time,” Justice, 19th November 1914

The New York “Vorwärts” the weekly edition of the “Neu Yorker Volkszeitung,” publishes an article on this subject from the pen of our esteemed comrade Clara Zetkin, of which the following is a summary The desire of the international proletariat for peace has shown itself powerless to prevent the world war. As cannon balls roll over weak blades of grass, which but yesterday waved gently in the breeze, crushing them to the earth, so the forces of Imperialism, driven on by capitalism, have swept over the proletarian peace demonstrations and hopes. The world is now aflame. A war is raging such as has never been known before ....

Was it necessary?

Workers Towards Socialism.

Martial-law makes it impossible for us to seek an answer. We are face to face with the fact that the driving forces of capitalism have burst the bounds of peaceful development. The consequences are incalculable, for whatever the changes may be which the war brings about on the map of Europe, it is certain that it will not be fought to the end without having the most tremendous effect on the economics of the nations, and on the world’s market. It is just this consideration which demands that the working class should become, in increased measure, the conscious bearers of the historic process of development towards the higher social order of Socialism.

It were unworthy of Socialist women to watch these historic events with folded hands, which from their To-day are preparing the To-morrow. The times call them to great tasks, the fulfilment of which requires all the devotion, enthusiasm and self-sacrifice which flows from the “eternal feminine” of their nature and their conviction.

War and Hunger.

The twin-sister of war is hunger. Its shrivelled, merciless hand knocks at the door of each family whose breadwinner is in the field .... Unemployment, too, spreads more quickly than any pestilence; anxiety, hunger, sickness, child-mortality follow in its wake. What will the winter bring? That, question is on millions of lips ....

Here we have the wide field where the Socialist women can fight battles, which are at the same time battles for their rights as human beings. The moment demands their whole strength. And so the Socialist women are working peacefully alongside of the bourgeois nationalist “Women’s Service,” and. also with its representatives on communal bodies, without however joining its organisation, which would be a drag upon them in their work. Our comrade Frau Zietz has recently written an article pointing out the necessity of such activity and the lines of demarcation by which it must be guided in each instance.

The Help of Women Essential.

If the municipalities are in earnest in their desire to stem the terrible tide of approaching misery, they cannot do without the help of our women comrades’ day. For they bring to the relief work knowledge and schooling obtained in the Socialist Party and the trade unions, as well as the practical experience which they have gained as proletarians. They know how to find the way to those proud and sensitive sufferers in garret and cellar who do not apply for relief, and they can find the sympathetic word that will loosen their tongues. They have the quick penetrating eye to see where and in what way help is needed. More than anyone else they can “open their mouth for the dumb and for the cause of all that are forsaken.” No alms; help and work as a social duty, that is the demand put convincingly by them to all public bodies. And our women must moreover seek to awaken the Socialist spirit, the proletarian class solidarity, in those they are helping; for let it be remembered that all the loving help and relief are in themselves incapable of shaking the foundations of capitalist society.

Maintain our Organisation

The war has thinned the ranks of our political and economic organisations. It is for the women to see that the loosened threads are not entirely sundered. When we speak of preserving the organisations, we mean, above all, the spirit which dwells therein. One of the most important methods of preserving this spirit is by the circulation of our Press, which, above all the turmoil of battle and the heaps of ruins, must keep the banner of International Socialism waving aloft unstained.

The Hardening Effect of War.

International Socialism! Do not the words sound like a mockery? In the days when the representatives of the proletariat should have been assembled in Vienna for the covenant of peace and freedom of the peoples, tens of thousands of the sons of the people were drawing their last breath on the battlefields, tens of thousands more were lying groaning in the field. hospitals, and that death and those wounds had been dealt by a brother-hand. Hundreds of thousands, indeed millions, irrespective of what country’s uniform they wear, are declaring with clenched teeth: “We do not wish to, we must. The rights and independence of our fatherland are menaced.” War has its own logic, its own laws and standards. It creates an atmosphere which indeed calls forth heroism, but which on the other hand, whether the fighters would or no, often rouses the beast that slumbers in the sub-consciousness of man. Letters from the front prove the hardening of the soul and the senses to the horrors of battle, a hardening which in many cases develops into brutality and bestiality. The papers relate the most horrible atrocities which citizens beyond the German boundaries are said to have perpetrated, in the name of patriotism, against the invading German soldiers; yes, even against the wounded and those who are caring for them. Even if the descriptions of these deeds are enormously exaggerated, as we believe they are, there is still more than enough of barbarity.

“Avenging” “Outrages.”

But do our ears deceive us? Similar barbarities are to “avenge” these misdeeds. That is what we read in part of the bourgeois Press. For every German maliciously shot, a village burnt down. The “Berliner Neueste Nachrichten” goes further and demands “ the clearance of occupied districts of all inhabitants .... Everyone seen in civil dress in the banned districts 24 hours after the expulsion order should be shot as a “spy.” Hand in hand with the advocacy of barbarism goes, of course, detraction of foreign peoples, whose friendship Germany but yesterday was striving to gain, and the belittling of their contributions to the upward march of humanity. It is as though all the standards were broken by which right and justice used to be measured in the life of nations, all the weights falsified with which the value of national things was weighed. Far away indeed seems the world-wide ideal of proletarian solidarity, the brotherhood of the peoples. Is it possible that the war extinguishes not only human lives, but human goals?

All Peoples have Contributed to Civilisation.

No, a thousand times no. Let us not allow the working masses to forget that the war has been caused by world-wide economic and political complications, and not by ugly and despicable personal qualities in the peoples with which Germany is fighting. Let us have the courage, when we hear the invectives against “perfidious Albion,” the “degenerate French,” the “barbaric Russians,” etc., to reply by pointing out the ineradicable riches contributed by these peoples to human development, and how they have assisted the fruition of German civilisation. The Germans, who have themselves contributed so much towards the international treasury of civilisation, ought to be able to exercise justice and veracity in judging other peoples. Let us point out that all peoples have the same right to independence and autonomy for the preservation of which the Germans are struggling ....

We Socialist women hear the voices which in this time of blood and iron still speak softly, painfully, and yet consolingly, of the future. Let us be their interpreters to our children. Let us preserve them from the harsh brazen sound of the ideas which fill the streets to-day, in which cheap pride-of-race stifles humanity. In our children must grow up the security that this most frightful of all wars shall be the last. The blood of the killed and wounded must not be a stream to divide that which unites the present distress and the future hope. It must be as a cement which shall bind fast for all time

19th November 1914 - It was the 'name day' of the Lancers here and as a very special occasion I was given a glass of vodka. It must have been a fine old brand as it went down my throat like a torchlight procession.

Corporal Samuel Meekosha VC aged 22 served in the 1/6th Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment (The Prince of Wales’s Own)

On 19 November 1915 near the Yser, Belgium:

Corporal Meekosha was with a platoon of about 20 NCOs and men holding an isolated trench. During a very heavy bombardment six of the platoon were killed and seven wounded, while the rest were more or less buried.

When there were no senior NCOs left in action Corporal Meekosha took command, sent for help and in spite of more big shells falling within 20 yards of him, continued to dig out the wounded and buried men in full view of and at close range from the enemy. His courage saved at least four lives.

Samuel Meekosha VC (16 September 1893- 8 December 1950), who changed his name by deed poll to Samuel Ingham in 1942, was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. (...)

It was reported in the 3 April 2001 issue of The Times that James Morton, Sotheby's medal specialist, said: "Meekosha was a very modest man who was quite dismissive of the act that earned him the VC. He joined up for the Second World War and because of his unusual name people kept asking him: 'Aren't you the chap that won the VC?' In an attempt to stop the questions he changed his name [to Ingham] by deed poll in 1941 or 1942."

After the First World War he became a representative for the tobacco company John Player. He died at his home in Oakdale, Blackwood, Monmouthshire, on 8 December 1950.

Ernest Martin Jehan DSC (2 February 1878 – 7 December 1929) was an officer in the Royal Navy during the First World War. Jehan is best known for the sinking of a German submarine by he and his crew aboard the smack Inverlyon. He began the war as a warrant officer and was decorated and commissioned after sinking UB-4. (...)

The Action of 15 August 1915 was a small naval battle involving Ernest Jehan. In 1915, the German Empire had begun its first U-boat campaign of the First World War. U-boats operated all around the British Isles, attacking allied warships and merchant vessels. The allies therefore began conducting counter submarine activities. One of the first counter measures to be taken was the deployment of Q-ships, merchant ships armed with hidden heavy weapons to lure out and destroy German submarines.

Inverlyon, a fishing smack, was one of these vessels. Fitted with a 3-pounder and commanded by Jehan, Inverlyon sailed for enemy infested waters. While sailing off the coast of Great Yarmouth on 14 August 1915, Gunner Jehan received news that a merchant ship, the Bona Fide, of 59 tons, had been stopped by the German submarine UB-4 and subsequently scuttled with explosives by a boarding party. By the next day Ernest had rushed to the Bona Fides last known position, at about 20:20 hours, The German sub surfaced near the Inverlyon. Then from the submarines conning tower came the shouts from a German sailor. Ordering Inverlyon's crew to prepare for boarding. Naturally the Q-ship disregarded the German officer's order. Jehan waited until the sub came to 30 yards (27m) away when he gave the command to raise the White Ensign and open fire. A series of three rounds from the sailing ships gun pounded the U-boat's conning tower and bridge, taking out the German commander. UB-4 then drifted behind Inverlyon, there her gun crew fired another six shots into UB-4's hull while others raked the sub with small arms fire. The U-boat then began to take on water from the bow area, the sub was almost vertical before slipping beneath the waves and getting caught on Inverlyon's fishing net. Due to the sub being caught on Inverlyon's net, Jehan sent a message home asking if the submarine should be raised and salvaged. The Admiralty replied with a negative response so the net was simply cut, allowing UB-4 to finish sinking to the bottom. All of the crew and commanding officer, Lt. Karl Gross, were killed. As result of the battle, Ernest Martin Jehan was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross on 19 November 1915, and promoted to lieutenant. (...)

Due to Inverlyon's sinking of the UB-4, Jehan became the first and only commander to sink a modern steel submarine with a sailing vessel.

Born in Gavle, Sweden, on 7 October 1879, Joe Hill, also known as Joseph Hillstrom and Joel Hagglund, was an American labor songwriter and martyr who was executed in Salt Lake City on 19 November 1915.

He immigrated to the lower east side Bowery section of New York City via Ellis Island in 1902. His naive idealism about American society was soon shattered by the harsh conditions and exploitation of immigrant workers that he witnessed. He became an itinerant laborer, working in mines, the lumber industry, and as a longshoreman. He also developed skills as a hobo, traveling on freight trains and living off the land.

Hill joined the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World or Wobblies) around the year 1910. He wrote songs based on the experiences of the working man of his day which were published in the IWW's Little Red Song Book. His most famous songs, including "Rebel Girl," "The Preacher and the Slave," and "Casey Jones," became world-famous and were used in labor organizing drives and in rallies supporting strikes.

Joe Hill came to Utah in 1913 and found employment in the Park City mines while becoming acquainted with the Swedish community in Murray, Utah. In 1914 he was accused of the murder of a Salt Lake City store owner, John A. Morrison, and convicted on circumstantial evidence. There ensued an international battle to prevent his execution by the State of Utah. Hill's supporters claimed that the business interests of the West, especially the "Copper Bosses" of Utah, had conspired to eliminate him. While there was no direct evidence that this was true, the climate of opinion in the West and in Utah was decidedly hostile to the IWW and to Joe Hill. It is clear that, under today's laws, Hill would not have been executed on the evidence presented at his trial. President Woodrow Wilson intervened twice in an attempt to prevent the execution, but Hill was executed at the Utah State Prison in Sugar House, Utah, on 19 November 1915.

Since Hill's execution, he has become a folk hero and labor martyr, a symbol of the American radical tradition and the quest for economic and social justice for society's disadvantaged. One of his statements, "Don't mourn, organize!" has become a labor rallying cry; while another, "I don't want to be found dead in Utah," concisely captures his sentiments prior to his execution.

There have been many attempts to portray Hill's life in different media over the years; biographies, novels, songs, plays, and movies have been written about him. "I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night" by Alfred Hayes and Earl Robinson has become an American folk song of enduring quality.

VI Lenin: Speech at the First All-Russia Congress of Working Women - November 19, 1918

(Comrade Lenin is greeted by the delegates with stormy applause.) Comrades, in a certain sense this Congress of the women's section of the workers' army has a special significance, because one of the hardest things in every country has been to stir the women into action. There can be no socialist revolution unless very many working women take a big part in it.

In all civilised countries, even the most advanced, women are actually no more than domestic slaves. Women do not enjoy full equality in any capitalist state, not even in the freest of republics.

One of the primary tasks of the Soviet Republic is to abolish all restrictions on women's rights. The Soviet government has completely abolished divorce proceedings, that source of bourgeois degradation, repression and humiliation.

It will soon be a year now since complete freedom of divorce was legislated. We have passed a decree annulling all distinction between legitimate and illegitimate children and removing political restrictions. Nowhere else in the world have equality and freedom for working women been so fully established.

We know that it is the working-class woman who has to bear the full brunt of antiquated codes.

For the first time in history, our law has removed everything that denied women rights. But the important thing is not the law. In the cities and industrial areas this law on complete freedom of marriage is doing all right, but in the countryside it all too frequently remains a dead letter. There the religious marriage still predominates. This is due to the influence of the priests, an evil that is harder to combat than the old legislation.

We must be extremely careful in fighting religious prejudices; some people cause a lot of harm in this struggle by offending religious feelings. We must use propaganda and education. By lending too sharp an edge to the struggle we may only arouse popular resentment; such methods of struggle tend to perpetuate the division of the people along religious lines, whereas our strength lies in unity. The deepest source of religious prejudice is poverty and ignorance; and that is the evil we have to combat.

The status of women up to now has been compared to that of a slave; women have been tied to the home, and only socialism can save them from this. They will only be completely emancipated when we change from small-scale individual farming to collective farming and collective working of the land. That is a difficult task. But now that Poor Peasants' Committees are being formed, the time has come when the socialist revolution is being consolidated.

The poorest part of the rural population is only now beginning to organise, and socialism is acquiring a firm foundation in these organisations of poor peasants.

Before, often the town became revolutionary and then the countryside.

But the present revolution relies on the countryside, and therein lie its significance and strength. the experience of all liberation movements has shown that the success of a revolution depends on how much the women take part in it. The Soviet government is doing everything in its power to enable women to carry on independent proletarian socialist work.

The Soviet government is in a difficult position because the imperialists of all countries hate Soviet Russia and are preparing to go to war with her for kindling the fire of revolution in a number of countries and for taking determined steps towards socialism.

Now that they are out to destroy revolutionary Russia, the ground is beginning to burn under their own feet. You know how the revolutionary movement is spreading in Germany. In Denmark the workers are fighting their government. In Switzerland and Holland the revolutionary movement is getting stronger. The revolutionary movement in these small countries has no importance in itself, but it is particularly significant because there was no war in these countries and they had the most "constitutional" democratic system. If countries like these are stirring into action, it makes us sure the revolutionary movement is gaining ground all over the world.

No other republic has so far been able to emancipate woman. The Soviet Government is helping her. Our cause is invincible because the invincible working class is rising in all countries. This movement signifies the spread of the invincible socialist revolution. (Prolonged applause. All sing the "Internationale".)

VCs of Gallipoli and The Dardanelles: 19 November 1915, near Ferejik Railway Junction, Bulgaria

Gazetted 1 January 1916 - Squadron Comd. R.Bell Davies RNAS
With the entry of Bulgaria into the war on the side of the Central Powers and the overthrow of Serbia, a rail link across the Balkans enabled the Germans to send munitions and warlike stores to Constantinople directly by goods train. Bell Davies had been flying in the Aegean since the beginning of the Dardanelles campaign as second-in-command to sqn Commander Charles Samson, already a legendary figure in his own right. Samson was given permission to bomb targets on Bulgarian soil and selected a number of them for treatment. On 19 November three aircraft attacked the railway station at Ferejik; in the course of the attack Bell Davies saw that one of his colleagues had been compelled to force-land. The pilot, seeing a unit of cavalry approaching, set fire to the aircraft and prepared to escape on foot; but Bell Davies landed in a dried-up watercourse and picked up his fellow pilot, who had to cling to the upper wing of the biplane as Bell Davies took off under heavy fire as his passenger found his way into the second cockpit, which had been covered with a spare engine cowl. Bell Davies became one of the pioneers of naval aviation, retiring in 1941 as a Vice Admiral but immediately returning as a convoy commodore, finally retiring in 1944. He died in 1966, having written his memoir, Sailor in the Airing which there is no mention of the circumstances that gained him the VC.

19 November 1915 - Royal Naval Air Service pilots Squadron Commander Richard Bell-Davies and Flight Sub-Lieutenant Gilbert Smylie are flying a bombing raid against a railway junction in Bulgaria when ground fire shoots down Smylie’s Farman bomber. In history’s first combat rescue mission by an aircraft, Bell-Davies lands his single-seater Nieuport 10, crams Smylie into it while Bulgarian infantrymen close in, and takes off, flying safely back to base. Bell-Davies receives the Victoria Cross for his actions; Smylie, the Distinguished Service Cross.

On this day 19 November 1915 Squadron Commander Richard Bell-Davies is awarded the VC for landing behind enemy lines at Ferrijik to rescue a colleague who had been shot down.

Admiralty announcement 1st January, 1916

The King has been graciously pleased to approve the grant of the Victoria Cross to Squadron Commander Richard Bell Davies DSO RN and the Distinguished Service Cross to Flight Sub-Lieutenant Gilbert Formby Smylie RN in recognition of their behaviour in the following circumstances.

On the 19th November these two officers carried out an air attack on Ferrijik Junction, Bulgaria. Flight Sub-Lieutenant Smylie's machine was received by very heavy fire and brought down. The pilot planed down over the station, releasing all his bombs, except one which failed to drop, simultaneously at the station from a very low attitude. Thence he continued his descent into the marsh.
On alighting he saw the one unexploded bomb, and set fire to his machine, knowing that the bomb would ensure its destruction. He then proceeded towards Turkish territory.
At this moment he perceived Squadron Commander Davies descending, and fearing that he would come down near the burning machine and thus risk destruction from the bomb, Flight Sub-Lieutenant Smylie ran back and from a short distance exploded the bomb by means of a pistol bullet. Squadron Commander Davies descended at a safe distance from the burning machine, took up Sub-Lieutenant Smylie, in spite of the near approach of a party of the enemy, and returned to the aerodrome, a feat of airmanship that can seldom have been equalled for skill and gallantry.

Although a fine leader, Birdwood was not a great intellect. He was no great strategist or tactician. Birdwood was the only corps commander to oppose the evacuation of Gallipoli, although the operation was becoming extremely difficult tactically and was losing its value strategically. Nor did he have any great gift as an organizer. Nonetheless, he replaced Hamilton as GOC of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force (MEF) and was promoted to Lieutenant General on 28 October 1915. On 19 November 1915 he took command of the Dardanelles Army.

Private W.H. Simmonds was tried with desertion at a Field General Court Martial held on 19 November 1916 at Poperinghe. The court consisted of a President and three members.

Pleaded: Not Guilty.
Verdict: Guilty.
The accused had several previous convictions which were read to the courts-martial before sentence was passed.
Sentence: Death by Shooting.
Executed: 1 December 1916 at 7 am.

William Simmonds is buried in Poperinghe New Military Cemetery, Grave Reference II.E.9.

Mr. KING asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the decision to suppress in this country the advocacy of peace through negotiations has been preceded by consultation with, or approval by, the Allied Governments or any one of them?

Mr. BALFOUR As no such decision has been made, the rest of the question does not arise.

The Battle of Caporetto (also known as the Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo or the Battle of Karfreit as it was known by the Central Powers; Slovene: Bitka pri Kobaridu), took place from 24 October to 19 November 1917, near the town of Kobarid (now in Slovenia), on the Austro-Italian front of World War I. The battle was named after the Italian name of the town of Kobarid (known as Karfreit in German).

Austro-Hungarian forces, reinforced by German units, were able to break into the Italian front line and rout the Italian army, which had practically no mobile reserves. The battle was a demonstration of the effectiveness of the use of stormtroopers and the infiltration tactics developed in part by Oskar von Hutier. The use of poison gas by the Germans played a key role in the collapse of the Italian Second Army.

Reproduced below is Paul von Hindenburg's account of the German reaction to the surprised British-led Battle of Cambrai in November 1917.

As German Army Chief of Staff Hindenburg - along with Erich Ludendorff - was responsible for formulating the German response to the massed tank attack overseen by General Julian Byng.

In his account Hindenburg conceded the initial effectiveness of the surprise element of the attack but criticised the British for not following up their early successes with suitable reinforcements.

Paul von Hindenburg on the Battle of Cambrai

While we were delivering the final blows against Russia and bringing Italy to the very brink of military collapse, England and France were continuing their attacks on the Western front. There lay the greatest danger of the whole year's campaign for us.

From the point of view, not of scale, but of the obstinacy which the English displayed and the difficulties of the ground for the defenders, the battles which now raged in Flanders put all our battles on the Somme in 1916 completely in the shade. The fighting was over the marshes and mud of Flanders instead of the hard chalk of the Artois.

These actions, too, developed into one of the long-drawn-out battles with which we were already so familiar, and in their general character represented an intensification of the sombre scenes peculiar to such battles. It is obvious that these actions kept us in great and continual anxiety. In fact, I may say that with such a cloud hanging over our heads we were seldom able to rejoice wholeheartedly over victories in Russia and Italy.

It was with a feeling of absolute longing that we waited for the beginning of the wet season. As previous experience had taught us, great stretches of the Flemish flats would then become impassable, and even in firmer places the new shell-holes would fill so quickly with ground water that men seeking shelter in them would find themselves faced with the alternative: "Shall we drown or get out of this hole?"

This battle, too, must finally stick in the mud, even though English stubbornness kept it up longer than otherwise.

The flames of battle did not die down until December. As on the Somme, neither of the two adversaries could raise the shout of victory in Flanders.

As the Flanders battle was drawing to a close, a fierce conflict unexpectedly blazed up at a part of the line which had hitherto been relatively inactive. On November 10th we were suddenly surprised by the English near Cambrai. The attack at this point was against a portion of the Siegfried Line which was certainly very strong from the point of view of technical construction, but was held by few troops and those exhausted in previous battles.

With the help of their tanks, the enemy broke through our series of obstacles and positions which had been entirely undamaged. English cavalry appeared on the outskirts of Cambrai. At the end of the year, therefore, a breach in our line appeared to be a certainty.

At this point a catastrophe was averted by German divisions which had arrived from the East, and were more or less worn out by fighting and the long journey. Moreover, after a murderous defensive action lasting several days we succeeded in quickly bringing up comparatively fresh troops, taking the enemy's salient in flank by a counter-attack, and almost completely restoring the original situation at very heavy cost to the enemy.

Not only the Army Headquarters Staff on the spot, but the troops themselves and our railways had performed one of the most brilliant feats of the war.

The first considerable attack on our side in the West since the conduct of operations was entrusted to me had come to a victorious conclusion. Its effect on me personally was as strong and invigorating as on our troops and their leaders. I felt it as a release from a burden which our defensive strategy on the Western Front had placed upon my shoulders.

For us, however, the success of our counter-attack involved far more than mere satisfaction. The element of surprise which had led to our success contained a lesson for the future.

With the Battle of Cambrai the English High Command had departed from what I might call the routine methods which hitherto they had always followed. Higher strategy seemed to have come into its own on this occasion. The pinning down of our main forces in Flanders and on the French front was to be used to facilitate a great surprise blow at Cambrai.

It must be admitted that the subordinate commanders on the English side had not been equal to the demands and possibilities of the situation. By neglecting to exploit a brilliant initial success they had let victory be snatched from them, and indeed by troops which were far inferior to their own, both in numbers and quality.

From this point of view our foe at Cambrai deserved his thorough defeat. Moreover, his High Command seemed to have failed to concentrate the resources required to secure the execution of their plans and their exploitation in case of success. Strong bodies of cavalry assembled behind the triumphant leading infantry divisions failed, even on this occasion, to overcome the last line of resistance, weak though it was, which barred the way to the flanks and rear of their opponents.

The English cavalry squadrons were not able to conquer the German defence, even with the help of their tanks, and proved unequal to decorating their standards with that victory for which they had striven so honourably and so often.

The English attack at Cambrai for the first time revealed the possibilities of a great surprise attack with tanks. We had had previous experience of this weapon in the spring offensive, when it had not made any particular impression. However, the fact that the tanks had now been raised to such a pitch of technical perfection that they could cross our undamaged trenches and obstacles did not fail to have a marked effect on our troops.

The physical effects of fire from machine-guns and light ordnance with which the steel Colossus was provided were far less destructive than the moral effect of its comparative invulnerability. The infantryman felt that he could do practically nothing against its armoured sides. As soon as the machine broke through our trench-lines, the defender felt himself threatened in the rear and left his post.

I had no doubt, however, that our men would soon get on level terms even with this new hostile weapon.

One of the worst losses of New Zealand lives at sea during the First World War occurred aboard the Union Company’s Aparima in 1917. When built for the Calcutta run in 1902, this ship had been the company's biggest. But it was no flyer. At 11-12 knots fully laden, the Aparima was usually the slowest ship in a troop convoy. One unhappy soldier, Sergeant J. Wilson, called it ‘a hell ship with some very poor officers.’

Five years earlier, the Aparima had become the fleet’s officer cadet training ship, providing up to 50 cadets at a time with seagoing experience in a working cargo steamer. After war broke out, it made several voyages with troops and horses before being requisitioned again by the British authorities. As these duties would keep the ship in war zones for much of the time, the Union Company allowed cadets’ parents to withdraw their sons. Fourteen did so, but other cadets continued to sail on troop runs to the UK.

Up went the bows and down went the stern amidst a roar of rushing water.
- Captain Gerald Doorly

On the night of 18/19 November 1917, the Aparima was sailing to a Welsh port for coaling when a torpedo fired by the German submarine UB-40 slammed into its stern. The ship shuddered, then sank rapidly. Of the 110 men aboard – a mixture of European officers, Lascar (Indian) crew and cadets – 56 were lost, including 17 of the 30 cadets. One casualty was cadet Colin McDonald, the son of Captain Coll McDonald, who had designed many of the Union Company’s ships. In all, 24 New Zealanders died that night.

Cadet Tommy Bevan had a remarkable escape. Thrown from his bunk into the surging, rising water, he was tossed against fittings and pushed by the rising tide all the way up to the deck-head where he would have drowned had he not been sucked up a tall ventilator ‘and shot clean out of the cowl’. The water pressure tore off all his clothes and tossed him on to an empty liferaft (designed by his late classmate’s father). A lifeboat rescued him after he set off a signal light.

November 19, 1918 – National Council approves first Government of the Republic of Latvia

Already the next day after the Proclamation of Independence of the Republic of Latvia, November 19, 1918, the National Council approved an Interim Government, set up by the first Prime Minister of Latvia Karlis Ulmanis, which continued to work for one year, and is considered to be the first Cabinet of Ministers of Latvia.

My career as a member of the G.H.Q. was to say the least not over long due to the fact that upon the arrival of peace my expert advice was no longer needed and now I am back again once more as a member of the 1st A.T. (ammunition train) and a real fighting man with no one to fight. There was one thing splendid tho, while I was on the staff. I managed to get in my car which was a wonderful great Cadillac and run up to Paris. That was a couple of days ago and from what I knew of Paris it was a changed city. During the day one great blaze of the tricolor and at night a blaze of light. It was also very gay but so crowded that to get hotel accommodations was practically impossible. We had a regular Ivy (Paul’s club at Princeton) dinner. There were six of us all of whom I knew very well at college although only two of them were in my class. Bill McAdoo was there and on the crest altogether; it was a wonderful celebration. The next day I consecrated to shopping and bought a whole brand new peace time outfit so that now I am one of the snappiest looking young lieutenants you can imagine with the toil and grime of war completely wiped away. The end coming when it did certainly blighted my promising young military career for now promotions have been called off and I understand that my captaincy for which I was recommended about three weeks ago is also called off. However, it is cheap at the price and the end could not have come any too soon.

Were I in your place I would not expect me home too soon for heaven only knows when it will be. Being in the regular army as I am I have a hunch that we will probably stay in France after all the others (units formed for the wartime army) are gone, to fill up the trenches and roll up the barbed wire.The opinion seems to be that we as professional soldiers have no ties or interests while the others, some of whom have been here as long as six months must get back, I suppose to make the world safe for democrats and prohibition. I have taken during the past year two pet aversions, one the Y.M.C.A. and the other the prohibitionists which speaks for itself. As to the latter I am, however, trusting to the care and forethought of my friends so that it will not be necessary to commit any crimes however venial they may be. The States are certainly going to the dogs but after things have settled down a bit we can all come back to France together and do as we want to.

I saw Mildred (Woodruff) for about five minutes while I was in Paris. She was very well and seemed to be enjoying herself immensely as is every one there just now.

There isn’t a great deal more to say just now so I will call things off for the present. Good bye with love
Paul

I’ve just found this fascinating 2007 snippet from the European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience on Adolf Hitler’s mysteriously missing psychiatric file from the time he was admitted to hospital following First World War injuries.

The article mentions that he was reportedly diagnosed with hysterical or non-organic blindness, something that nowadays would be diagnosed as dissociative disorder or conversion disorder, which signifies that a seemingly ‘physical’ problem occurs without any detectable physical origin.

The traditional and still popular explanation is that the mind is converting trauma to a physical symptom to protect itself from distress, although there is not a great deal of evidence for this theory.

However, it seems his file from this hospital admission disappeared and everyone who had knowledge about the case was apparently killed by the SS.

The recent 60 years anniversary of the end of World War II and the Nazi regime may be reason for a short psychiatric-historical note to point out a frequently overlooked detail of Hitler’s life‚Äîhis hidden psychiatric biography. Besides his extreme anti-semitism, mentally ill were among the most threatened individuals with some 200,000 being killed. This was made public during World War II by the Muenster cardinal Galen who most recently was beatified by pope Benedikt XVI. While Hitler’s late Parkinson disease has attracted some attention, his former functional ‚Äòhysteric‚Äô blindness is almost unknown.

In fact on 14th October 1918 Hitler, who served as a private in World War I, survived a mustard gas attack in Belgium near Ypern. There are some reports that he consecutively had a mild resultant conjunctivitis. He also suffered from nonorganic blindness. His further treatment is nearly unknown. Hitler was transferred to the military hospital in Pasewalk near Stettin/Baltic sea. Prof. Forster, chair at that psychiatric clinic, treated him by using hypnosis. Hitler was discharged on 19th November 1918 and never mentioned this period again.

His treatment is proven by eyewitness of Dr. Karl Kroner who later reported the facts to the US intelligence Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Hitlers‚Äô file disappeared and all people who were closely involved or had special knowledge of this file were killed by the ‚ÄòGestapo‚Äô, including Prof. Forster who probably was forced to commit suicide on 9th November 1933. Before that he succeeded in presenting these documents to exile writers in Paris where his brother was employed at the German embassy. The German Jewish writer Ernst Weiss, a physician himself, used the original documents in his novel ‚ÄòDer Augenzeuge‚Äô (The Eyewitness) before he committed suicide during the German occupation of Paris on 6th May 1940.

The original file is lost but for all we know Hitler had a psychiatric history, which may not explain his savage ideas but throws an interesting light on his anti-psychiatric attitude.

Maybe it’s in the Albert Hall, along with that other important medical artefact from the F√ºhrer.

However, I note from the Wikipedia page on Hitler’s medical history that there have been many claims about Hitler’s health, many of them not well verified.

Nevertheless, he was subject to not one, but two, wartime Freudian character analyses commissioned by the OSS – the forerunner to the CIA. The first was completed by psychologist Henry Murray and the second by psychoanalyst Walter Langer.

The reports have many oddities and are largely opinion but they concluded that Hitler was a neurotic psychopath, probably had paranoid schizophrenia, was likely impotent, was a repressed homosexual and, most famously, would likely kill himself.

Although to be fair, the latter point did not describe dying a miserable death in a bunker but included various movie-style scenarios where he would blow himself up in a dynamite rigged mountain, use a single silver bullet or throw himself off a parapet as troops came to take him prisoner.

I’ve no idea how useful these reports ever were but they probably tell us more about the trends in psychology of the time than anything about the Nazi leader’s mind.

19 November 1919 → Written Answers (Commons): CANADIAN SOLDIERS (REPATRIATION).

Mr. W. THORNE asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies if he is aware that there are a number of Canadian soldiers who took their discharge in England who now find themselves workless and their war gratuity almost exhausted; if he is aware that these men have themselves forfeited their legal right to repatriation; and if he will use his good offices in trying to persuade the Dominion Government to give the men free passage home?

Lieut.-Colonel AMERY Yes, Sir. I understand that the matter is under the consideration of the Canadian authorities.

On this day in 1919, the Senate, for the first time in its history, rejected a peace treaty.

At bottom, the Senate’s failure to ratify the Treaty of Versailles and the concurrent obligation for the United States to join the League of Nations reflected the deep animosity between Woodrow Wilson, the Democratic president who negotiated on America’s behalf in Paris, and Republican Lodge had disliked one another for years.

Among the first to earn doctoral degrees from the nation’s newly established graduate schools, each man considered himself the country’s preeminent scholar in politics and scorned the other.

The emergence of World War I intensified their rivalry. By 1918, Wilson had been president for nearly six years, while Lodge had represented Massachusetts in the Senate for a quarter century.

Both considered themselves experts in international affairs. In setting policy for ending the war, Wilson, the idealist, sought a “peace without victory,” while Lodge, the realist, demanded Germany’s unconditional surrender.

When the 1918 midterm congressional elections transferred control of the Senate from the Democrats to the Republicans, Lodge became both majority leader and Foreign Relations Committee chairman.

Whether Wilson liked it or not, he needed Lodge’s active support to ensure Senate approval of the Treaty of Versailles and its provision for a League of Nations on which he had staked so much of his political prestige.

Wilson chose to ignore Lodge. He offended the Senate by refusing to include senators among the negotiators accompanying him to the Paris Peace Conference and by making conference results public before discussing them with committee members.

In a flash of anger against what he considered Senate interference, Wilson denounced Lodge and his allies as “contemptible, narrow, selfish, poor little minds that never get anywhere but run around in a circle and think they are going somewhere.”

After Lodge’s committee added numerous “reservations” and amendments to the treaty, the frustrated president took his campaign to the nation. During a cross-country tour in October 1919, he suffered a physical collapse that further clouded his political judgment.

In November, Lodge sent to the Senate floor a treaty with 14 reservations, but no amendments. In the face of Wilson’s continued unwillingness to negotiate, the Senate on Nov. 19, 1919, for the first time in its history, rejected a peace treaty.

When members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee learned of former President Woodrow Wilson’s death in 1924, they asked their chairman, Henry Cabot Lodge, to represent them at the funeral. Learning of this plan, the president’s widow sent Lodge the following note: “Realizing that your presence would be embarrassing to you and unwelcome to me, I write to request that you do not attend.”

When the league shall have been formed, we shall be a member of what is known as the council of the league. Our accredited representative will sit in judgment with the accredited representatives of the other members of the league to pass upon the concerns not only of our country but of all Europe and all Asia and the entire world. Our accredited representatives will be members of the assembly. They will sit there to represent the judgment of these 110,000,000 people—more then—just as we are accredited here to represent our constituencies. We can not send our representatives to sit in council with the representatives of the other great nations of the world with mental reservations as to what we shall do in case their judgment shall not be satisfactory to us. If we go to the council or to the assembly with any other purpose than that of complying in good faith and in absolute integrity with all upon which the council or the assembly may pass, we shall soon return to our country with our self-respect forfeited and the public opinion of the world condemnatory.

Why need you gentlemen across the aisle worry about a reservation here or there when we are sitting in the council and in the assembly and bound by every obligation in morals, which the President said was supreme above that of law, to comply with the judgment which our representatives and the other representatives finally form? Shall we go there, Mr. President, to sit in judgment, and in case that judgment works for peace join with our allies, but in case it works for war withdraw our cooperation? How long would we stand as we now stand a great Republic commanding the respect and holding the leadership of the world, if we should adopt any such course?. . .

We have said, Mr. President, that we would not send our troops abroad without the consent of Congress. Pass by now for a moment the legal proposition. If we create executive functions, the Executive will perform those functions without the authority of Congress. Pass that question by and go to the other question. Our members of the council are there. Our members of the assembly are there. Article 11 is complete, and it authorizes the league, a member of which is our representative, to deal with matters of peace and war, and the league through its council and its assembly deals with the matter, and our accredited representative joins with the others in deciding upon a certain course, which involves a question of sending troops. What will the Congress of the United States do? What right will it have left, except the bare technical right to refuse, which as a moral proposition it will not dare to exercise? Have we not been told day by day for the last nine months that the Senate of the United States, a coordinate part of the treaty-making power, should accept this league as it was written because the wise men sitting at Versailles had so written it, and has not every possible influence and every source of power in public opinion been organized and directed against the Senate to compel it to do that thing? How much stronger will be the moral compulsion upon the Congress of the United States when we ourselves have indorsed the proposition of sending our accredited representatives there to vote for us?

Ah, but you say that there must be unanimous consent, and that there is vast protection in unanimous consent.

I do not wish to speak disparagingly; but has not every division and dismemberment of every nation which has suffered dismemberment taken place by unanimous consent for the last 300 years? Did not Prussia and Austria and Russia by unanimous consent divide Poland? Did not the United States and Great Britain and Japan and Italy and France divide China and give Shantung to Japan? Was that not a unanimous decision? Close the doors upon the diplomats of Europe, let them sit in secret, give them the material to trade on, and there always will be unanimous consent....

Mr. President, if you have enough territory, if you have enough material, if you have enough subject peoples to trade upon and divide, there will be no difficulty about unanimous consent.

Do our Democratic friends ever expect any man to sit as a member of the council or as a member of the Assembly equal in intellectual power and in standing before the world with that of our representative at Versailles? Do you expect a man to sit in the council who will have made more pledges, and I shall assume made them in sincerity, for self-determination and for the rights of small peoples, than had been made by our accredited representative? And yet, what became of it? The unanimous consent was obtained nevertheless.

But take another view of it. We are sending to the council one man. That one man represents 110,000,000 people.

Here, sitting in the Senate, we have two from every State in the Union, and over in the other House we have Representatives in accordance with population, and the responsibility is spread out in accordance with our obligations to our constituency. But now we are transferring to one man the stupendous power of representing the sentiment and convictions of 110,000,000 people in tremendous questions which may involve the peace or may involve the war of the world....

What is the result of all this? We are in the midst of all of the affairs of Europe. We have entangled ourselves with all European concerns. We have joined in alliance with all the European nations which have thus far joined the league, and all nations which may be admitted to the league. We are sitting there dabbling in their affairs and intermeddling in their concerns. In other words, Mr. President—and this comes to the question which is
fundamental with me—we have forfeited and surrendered, once and for all, the great policy of "no entangling alliances" upon which the strength of this Republic has been founded for 150 years.

My friends of reservations, tell me where is the reservation in these articles which protects us against entangling alliances with Europe?

Those who are differing over reservations, tell me what one of them protects the doctrine laid down by the Father of his Country. That fundamental proposition is surrendered, and we are a part of the European turmoils and conflicts from the time we enter this league....

Lloyd-George is reported to have said just a few days before the conference met at Versailles that Great Britain could give up much, and would be willing to sacrifice much, to have America withdraw from that policy. That was one of the great objects of the entire conference at Versailles, so far as the foreign representatives were concerned. Clemenceau and Lloyd-George and others like them were willing to make any reasonable sacrifice which would draw America away from her isolation and into the internal affairs and concerns of Europe. This league of nations, with or without reservations, whatever else it does or does not do, does surrender and sacrifice that policy; and once having surrendered and become a part of the European concerns, where, my friends, are you going to stop?

You have put in here a reservation upon the Monroe doctrine. I think that, in so far as language could protect the Monroe doctrine, it has been protected. But as a practical proposition, as a working proposition, tell me candidly, as men familiar with the history of your country and of other countries, do you think that you can intermeddle in European affairs; and, secondly, never to permit Europe to [interfere in our affairs].

We can not protect the Monroe doctrine unless we protect the basic principle upon which it rests, and that is the Washington policy. I do not care how earnestly you may endeavor to do so, as a practical working proposition your league will come to the United States....

Mr. President, there is another and even a more commanding reason why I shall record my vote against this treaty. It imperils what I conceive to be the underlying, the very first principles of this Republic. It is in conflict with the right of our people to govern themselves free from all restraint, legal or moral, of foreign powers....

Sir, since the debate opened months ago those of us who have stood against this proposition have been taunted many times with being little Americans. Leave us the, word American, keep that in your presumptuous impeachment, and no taunt can disturb us, no gibe discompose our purposes. Call us little Americans if you will, but leave us the consolation and the pride which the term American, however modified, still imparts.... We have sought nothing save the tranquillity of our own people and the honor and independence of our own Republic. No foreign flattery, no possible world glory and power have disturbed our poise or come between us and our, devotion to the traditions which have made us a people or the policies which have made us a Nation, unselfish and commanding. If we have erred we have erred out of too much love for those things which from childhood you and we together have been taught to revere—yes, to defend even at the cost of limb and life. If we have erred it is because we have placed too high an estimate upon the wisdom of Washington and Jefferson, too exalted an opinion upon the patriotism of the sainted Lincoln....

Senators, even in an hour so big with expectancy we should not close our eyes to the fact that democracy is something more, vastly more, than a mere form of government by which society is restrained into free and orderly life. It is a moral entity, a spiritual force, as well. And these are things which live only and alone in the atmosphere of liberty. The foundation upon which democracy rests is faith in the moral instincts of the people. Its ballot boxes, the franchise, its laws, and constitutions are but the outward manifestations of the deeper and more essential thing—a continuing trust in the moral purposes of the average man and woman. When this is lost or forfeited your outward forms, however democratic in terms, are a mockery. Force may find expression through institutions democratic in structure equal with the simple and more direct processes of a single supreme ruler. These distinguishing virtues of a real republic you can not commingle with the discordant and destructive forces of the Old World and still preserve them. You can not yoke a government whose fundamental maxim is that of liberty to a government whose first law is that of force and hope to preserve the former. These things are in eternal war, and one must ultimately destroy the other. You may still keep for a time the outward form, you may still delude yourself, as others have done in the past, with appearances and symbols, but when you shall have committed this Republic to a scheme of world control based upon force, upon the combined military force of the four great nations of the world, you will have soon destroyed the atmosphere of freedom, of confidence in the self-governing capacity of the masses, in which alone a democracy may thrive. We may become one of the four dictators of the world, but we shall no longer be master of our own spirit. And what shall it profit us as a Nation if we shall go forth to the domination of the earth and share with others the glory of world control and lose that fine sense of confidence in the people, the soul of democracy?

Look upon the scene as it is now presented. Behold the task we are to assume, and then contemplate the method by which we are to deal with this task. Is the method such as to address itself to a Government "conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal"? When this league, this combination, is formed four great powers representing the dominant people will rule one-half of the inhabitants of the globe as subject peoples—rule by force, and we shall be a party to the rule of force. There is no other way by which you can keep people in subjection. You must either give them independence, recognize their rights as nations to live their own life and to set up their own form of government, or you must deny them these things by force. That is the scheme, the method proposed by the league. It proposes no other. We will in time become inured to its inhuman precepts and its soulless methods strange as this doctrine now seems to a free people. If we stay with our contract, we will come in time to declare with our associates that force—force, the creed of the Prussian military oligarchy—is after all the true foundation upon which must rest all stable governments. Korea, despoiled and bleeding at every pore; India, sweltering in ignorance and burdened with inhuman taxes after more than one hundred years of dominant rule; Egypt, trapped and robbed of her birthright; Ireland, with 700 years of sacrifice for independence—this is the task, this is the atmosphere, and this is the creed in and under which we are to keep alive our belief in the moral purposes and self-governing capacity of the people, a belief without which the Republic must disintegrate and die. The maxim of liberty will soon give way to the rule of blood and iron. We have been pleading here for our Constitution. Conform this league, it has been said, to the technical terms of our charter, and all will be well. But I declare to you that we must go further and conform to those sentiments and passions for justice and freedom which are essential to the existence of democracy....

Sir, we are told that this treaty means peace. Even so, I would not pay the price. Would you purchase peace at the cost of any part of our independence? We could have had peace in 1776– the price was high, but we could have had it. James Otis, Sam Adams, Hancock, and Warren were surrounded by those who urged peace and British rule. All through that long and trying struggle, particularly when the clouds of adversity lowered upon the cause, there was a cry of peace—let us have peace. We could have had peace in 1860; Lincoln was counseled by men of great influence and accredited wisdom to let our brothers—and, thank Heaven, they are brothers— depart in peace. But the tender, loving Lincoln, bending under the fearful weight of impending civil war, an apostle of peace, refused to pay the price, and a reunited country will praise his name forevermore—bless it because he refused peace at the price of national honor and national integrity. Peace upon any other basis than national independence, peace purchased at the cost of any part of our national integrity, is fit only for slaves, and even when purchased at such a price it is a delusion, for it can not last.

But your treaty does not mean peace—far, very far, from it. If we are to judge the future by the past it means war. Is there any guaranty of peace other than the guaranty which comes of the control of the war-making power by the people? Yet what great rule of democracy does the treaty leave unassailed? The people in whose keeping alone you can safely lodge the power of peace or war nowhere, at no time and in no place, have any voice in this scheme for world peace. Autocracy which has bathed the world in blood for centuries reigns supreme. Democracy is everywhere excluded. This, you say, means peace.

Can you hope for peace when love of country is disregarded in your scheme, when the spirit of nationality is rejected, even scoffed at? Yet what law of that moving and mysterious force does your treaty not deny? With a ruthlessness unparalleled your treaty in a dozen instances runs counter to the divine law of nationality. Peoples who speak the same language, kneel at the same ancestral tombs, moved by the same traditions, animated by a common hope, are torn asunder, broken in pieces, divided, and parceled out to antagonistic nations. And this you call justice. This, you cry, means peace. Peoples who have dreamed of independence, struggled and been patient, sacrificed and been hopeful, peoples who were told that through this peace conference they should realize the aspirations of centuries, have again had their hopes dashed to earth. One of the most striking and commanding figures in this war, soldier and statesmen, turned away from the peace table at Versailles declaring to the world, "The promise of the new life, the victory of the great humane ideals for which the peoples have shed their blood and their treasure without stint, the fulfillment of their aspirations toward a new international order and a fairer and better world, are not written into the treaty." No, your treaty means injustice. It means slavery. It means war. And to all this you ask this Republic to become a party. You ask it to abandon the creed under which it has grown to power and accept the creed of autocracy, the creed of repression and force.

Van de Hulst was a Dutch astronomer who predicted theoretically that 21-centimetre radio waves were produced by interstellar hydrogen atoms.

His calculations later proved valuable in mapping the Milky Way and were the basis for radio astronomy during its early development. Shortly after the Second World War, several groups set about to test the prediction. The 21-centimetre line of atomic hydrogen was detected in 1951, first at Harvard University then followed within a few weeks by others.

The discovery demonstrated that astronomical research, which at that time was limited to conventional light, could be complemented with observations at radio wavelengths, revealing a range of new physical processes.

Object description: The march past on the occasion of the State Entry into Antwerp of King Albert I and Queen Elizabeth of Belgium, 19 November 1918.
Creator: Brooke, John Warwick (Lieutenant) (Photographer)

TRAGIC DEATH OF OFFICER S WIFE - A sad accident occurred at Fort Sandeman on the 10th instant, as a result of which Mrs. Turner, wife of Captain J.T. Turner, I.A.R.O., Indian Educational Service, Zhob Militia, met her death. The unfortunate lady was examining a loaded pistol when it went off and caused her instantaneous death. Much sympathy is felt for Captain Turner, who was out of the station on tour at the time, and for his infant daughter.

AIRMEN BUSY IN THE BATTLE AREA - A British communiqué, referring to aviation, says: We dropped forty-three tons of bombs on selected targets. A concentrated attack was made on the railway junction at Aulnoy, where we blew up an ammunition train and set fire to rolling stock. Photographs show that great damage and much disorganisation was caused at this centre of enemy communication. We heavily bombed Lille and Valenciennes stations and many targets in the battle area. We destroyed fifteen hostile machines and drove down five out of control. We also compelled another to land in our lines. We shot down nine balloons in flames. Eight British machines are missing. One British machine reported missing has now returned. Night flying was almost impossible, but before dawn a squadron dropped a ton of bombs. All our machines returned.

This letter, written on pink lined paper, is one of a series of letters written by Earl Barnes (1876 - 1967) to Fred Hutchings (1888 -1976).
Barnes and Hutchings both fought as part of the 6th Light Horse Regiment in Palestine. Their friendship continued after Fred Hutchings transferred to the 1st Field Squadron Engineers in June 1917.
Earl Barnes was a schoolteacher prior to enlistment. He returned to teaching following the war.
In the letter Earl Barnes, originally from Triangle Flat, Rockley NSW), tells Fred Hutchings that the paper is his 'finest Jericho paper' and was bought in 'that miserable town'.

19 November 1915: The Leader publishes the poem The Slacker by Dryblower (Edwin Greenslade Murphy)

We have read how the best of our bravest have died.
Where the shrapnel cut gaps in the gullies,
How the lion and the ‘roo took their pasting with pride,
Brothers and cobbers and cullies;
And the long years have vanished where all the years go
Since we first saw the rush for recruiting,
When our volunteer valiants fell to the foe
From a hill unassailable shooting
Our boys battled on, but a mighty defence
Tore down the intrepid attackers,
And now, if we want to remain on the maps,
We’ve got to get busy and fill up the gaps
And it seems to be up to the slackers!

Give me five minutes, you mothers and dads,
Who’ve sent your brave sons to the slaughter,
Let me cut loose, on the cowardly cads
Who on Sunday Don-Juan your daughter;
Your own bonny boys heard the clarion call,
And bravely went out with your blessing;
We read how they fight, and we read how they fall
When the bayonets pointed and pressing,
But while the slopes of Gallipoli grim
Goes down the courageous enlister
Does he dream as he gasps on the bullet-torn earth
In a park or a parlor of faraway Perth
A slacker is smoodging his sister?

Does he dream as he lies on the blood-sodden sand
If the stretchermen happen to find him
A sister is holding a rifleless hand
Of the bounder in safety behind him?
Does he think of the father who bade him good-bye
When the trooper’s propellers were racing,
To-day is demanding the wherefore and why
Of one who his manhood’s disgracing?
Does he dream of the mother who wept as he went,
When sorrow her bosom was blighting,
Would be handing hot coffee and cake on a lawn
To a waster who reads with a wearisome yawn
How her darling was first in the fighting?

Did he put on the khaki and march into camp,
Did he act as an orderly greasy.
Did he live nice a Spartan, drill, study and tramp
To let a fat loafer live easy?
He took up the burden the rotters refused,
To keep them in safe billets tamely,
While their courage from out of their finger-tips oozed
He fought for his Mother-land gamely.
So it’s up to you mother, and sister and dad,
And don’t waste your words or harangue it;
Your soldier-son bled on Gallipoli shore
While the slacker enthused on a lawn tennis score.
So when in his face you are shutting the door

1st Batt: St Avaast ‘A’ Lines: Snowed last night, country white, the first time some of our men from India had seen snow for 8 or 9 years. By 7 pm the ground was covered with snow, a cold north east wind was blowing with 17o of frost. Officers and men’s clothes were wet and the whole Battalion dead tired.

2nd Batt: Ordered into the trenches again. At 5pm marched via Hooge to the trenches immediately S of Ypres-Menin road and relieved the Cheshires and Bedfords. Snowing hard. Bitterly cold. Trenches half full of water. Heavy sniping. Under the order of Gen Count Gleichen 15th Infantry Brigade;